Many of us are passionate or even fanatic about the sports we love. College stadiums and field houses literally rumble with the combined enthusiasm of thousands of spectators cheering on their teams. Professional team sports capture the hearts and imaginations of entire cities and regions. Wearing a certain hat or logo not only marks you as being from a great city such as Seattle, New York, Washington D.C., Boston or Osaka—it also marks you as having allegiance to the team you root for. Sports bars invest lots of money annually to provide the best possible equipment and environment for watching sports. Satellite, cable and broadcast networks devote vast resources to sports coverage. Sports scores and standings occupy significant portions of daily and weekly newspapers throughout the world.
Because of our love of sports, sports based video games have also been very successful. Some of the very first video games were sports based (e.g., tennis or hockey). Sports based video games allow game players to competitively play a wide variety of sports from the comfort of their living rooms, dens and college dorms. Many sports video games are released every year, each with unique features and aspects designed to draw game players' attention and provide new and interesting game play. Players can play as their favorite Pro-Bowl quarterback or All-Star basketball player, even if they have never competitively played football or basketball.
Sports video game developers face the challenge of how to introduce new and exciting features in new sports games that may otherwise be similar to predecessor games in fundamental game play aspects. After all, the game playing public generally expects a baseball video game to provide a reasonably accurate model of at least some aspects of the actual game of baseball. For example, most game players will expect a baseball video game to be played on a field with four bases, with two opposing teams each having nine players including a pitcher, first, second and third basemen, outfielders, shortstop and a catcher. Similarly, most game players will expect such a baseball video game to follow baseball scoring conventions, strikes and balls, number of outs per inning and the like. The same expectations would generally hold for video games modeled after volleyball, football, soccer, tennis, golf and any other popular sport.
Given the significant constraints imposed by such conventions, game developers generally have limited freedom to change fundamental aspects of game play that game players consider to be important. Even despite such constraints, however, there is room for substantial creativity in developing new sports games. In the past, sports video game developers often concentrated on making their game play as realistic as possible. Realistically modeling athletes in 3D animation enhances the game play experience. Another fertile area for innovation relates to special features that enhance the user's game play experience. For example, much work has been done in the past regarding scoring and statistics. User control features such as camera angle, instant replay and the like permit some sports video games to mimic televised sports. Other sports video games supply creative enhancements such as different kinds of virtual player vision, detailed control over player actions and reflexes, and the like. Such features allow the video game player sitting in his or her living room, den or college dorm to become a star pitcher or quarterback and win the game for his or her team. Competitive game play through direct or networked interaction allows video game players to test their skills and strategy against opponents.
Despite the vast amount of prior work and effort that has gone into developing ever more interesting and exciting sports video game play experiences, further improvements are desirable. Just as we never tire of the next baseball, football or soccer season, the video game playing community looks forward to release of yet another generation of sports video games. There is therefore a high premium on satisfying the demand for new, ever more exciting and interesting sports video game play.
Exemplary non-limiting illustrative implementations of the technology herein provide a competitive video game with both sports and battle game aspects presenting a novel and exciting game play experience. In one exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, a familiar game, such as volleyball, has been enhanced by adding a battle aspect. For example, in a traditional volleyball game, a player may move the ball around on one side of the court, eventually hitting or “spiking” the ball over the net to an opponent's side in a way that is difficult to return. The opponent responds to the ball movement by returning the ball to keep the ball in play. If the opponent attempting to dig the ball is out of position or fails to execute properly, the ball may fall to the ground or go sailing wildly off course, resulting in a point for the spiking player's team.
According to one exemplary illustrative non-limiting volleyball video game implementation, instead of punishing a player for a bad response by ending the point, the game may instead cause damage to a corresponding game character or avatar, but keep the ball in play. For example, in one exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, each game character may have an associated “health” parameter. When a game character's “health” is depleted, the character is disabled or may even die a virtual death. Even at this point the game play may continue. The ball can be kept in play and “volleyed” until some or all of the players on a team have become incapacitated. A volley for a point can also end on a variety of different other factors, including for example any character suffering damage, a time limit, a number of passes over the net, or the like. Many familiar volleyball aspects thus remain, but battle game aspects have also been added.
In one exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementations a projectile, in this example a virtual volleyball or other ball, moved between opponents, is used as a weapon against an opponent's game characters. For example, the harder a spiking game character strikes the ball, the more damage the ball may do to a game character that does not properly protect himself or herself by digging the spike.
In one exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, not only can the player affect the power used to spike the ball, but, according to a further exemplary implementation, the player may be able to “power up” or weaponize the projectile before the projectile reaches a game character who will use the projectile as a weapon. In the volleyball example implementation, this could be a volleyball power-up before the ball reaches the game character performing the spike. When another game character on the spiking game character's team tosses or “sets” the ball to the spiking character, the flight path of the ball may be shown. Along the spike path, one or more visual indicia prompting input may be displayed. As the ball travels along the displayed path, the player whose side controls the ball can attempt to power-up the ball by pressing a controller button as the ball passes over each prompt. If the press is timed correctly, the ball gains attack power. When the spike is completed, the attack might resultantly have much more power than it would have if the player had simply spiked an unaltered ball.
In another exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, the virtual projectile may change composition based on a specific input pattern. In the volleyball example, a series of prompts may appear on a spike meter displayed when volleyball is “set” from one game character to a teammate. Initially, the volleyball may appear to be composed of a traditional volleyball material, such as leather or plastic. By successfully timing a series of controller inputs to correspond with the ball passing over the prompts, the player may be able to change the virtual ball's virtual composition. For example, the player may change the ball into an ice-ball-thereby weaponizing the volleyball. The ice-ball may freeze an opponent on contact, or slow the opponent's responses, or do more damage because it is solid ice, etc.
In a still further exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, a projectile launched towards an opponent may be given a certain degree of power based on the timing of a controller button input. There may be one or more zones displayed at a spike's meter's end, and each zone may correspond to a particular power-up amount. For example, there may be plural zones displayed: for example, a large zone, a medium zone, and a small zone. In the volleyball example, these zones combine to form an area called the “spike touch.” If the player presses a controller button to spike the ball while the ball passes through the large zone, the spike is successful, but with the least amount of power. If a button is pressed while the ball passes through the medium zone, the ball has a greater force behind it. If a button is pressed while the ball is in the smallest zone, the most powerful spike is performed. The buttons pressed may all be the same button, or they may be different buttons. Each zone can be sized with the degree of benefit being related to the degree of difficulty in timing the controller button press to coincide with the ball passing through the appropriate zone.
In yet another exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, a player may use one controller button to “attempt a strong attack” and another controller button to attempt a “weak attack.” In this implementation, the “weak attack” button input does not have to be as precisely timed as the “strong attack” button input. If the “weak attack” button is pressed as the ball passes over prompt indicators, the ball gains some power, and the button can be successfully pressed while the ball is further from the center of the indicator. If the “strong attack” button is pressed, the ball may have to be closer to the center of the virtual indicator, and the player receives a stronger ball power-up. The software may treat the spike touch area similarly. If the “weak attack” button is pressed while the ball is in any of the three exemplary zones, the game character performs a successful, but weak, spike. If the “strong attack” button is pressed while the ball is in the medium or smallest zone, the game character performs a stronger or strongest spike respectively. If the strong attack button is pressed while the ball is in the largest zone, but not in another zone, the spike may fail.
In yet another exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, the game object path may be directed by a player input. For example, if the player is provided with a cross-button directional switch, different direction presses on the switch could cause the game object to behave differently after it is launched at an opposing player. An upward press on the switch could cause the game object to move in one pattern, while a downward press could cause the game object to move in another. Pressing forward may cause a third change, while pressing back may cause a fourth change. Leaving the switch untouched could simply cause the game object to take an ordinary path.
In still a further exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, the game can be played with a very limited number of switches and/or buttons. The game could be provided, for example, with an interface based entirely on single button press timing, allowing for a controller provided with nothing more than a single button to be used. All responsive game character movement could be based on whether or not the button was pressed at the appropriate times, each timing prompt indicated in some fashion, visually, audibly or tactilely.
According to another exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, the points for succeeding in a game action can vary from those that would be awarded in the actual sporting event depicted by the game. In this implementation, a randomization effect is provided. For example, a virtual spinning wheel is divided into sections, each section having a different point value. Before an action is taken that might result in a point under the particular game's traditional rules, the wheel is spun, producing a random value for the next point. To use the volleyball example, one traditional volleyball version is played in one-point increments up to fifteen. In the exemplary implementation, before each serve, the wheel is spun. Whatever value comes up is then the value of the point, if any, scored during that volley. After a point is scored the process is repeated, so the value of points can vary constantly throughout the game. The wheel may also be provided with a random-space, where a random affect takes place if the space is selected. For example, the players of the game could suddenly be launched into a mini-game, the result of which determines the value of the point for the next round.
Additional non-limiting exemplary advantageous features include:                When the ball flies from opponent court, trying to receive it as good as possible (button operation)        After the toss, before attacking, a ball path is displayed toward the attacker, and the ball reaches to the attacker along with the path        There are some markers on the ball path and timing of pushing buttons along with the markers affects strength of the attack.        Timing of pushing button along with the marker of attack causes the special effect and power of the attack to opponents court.        The attacks with special effect and power are selected by cross key operations after the toss.        Before the game start, a roulette game is done for setting score, and then start the ball game.        When the roulette stops at “?” frame, the game changes to other sorts of games such as pro-wrestling, and the result of such games becomes ball game score.        